At some point in time, the chance is that the death of a celebrity has saddened you. Maybe you mourned Princess Diana in the 1990s or, perhaps more recently, you are grieving the loss of actor Matthew Perry. While on the grief journey, you may be asking yourself, “Is it normal to grieve the life of a person I never met?”. This sadness goes beyond this person’s ability to touch people’s hearts through acting, singing, or so on. The grief is very real and personal in many ways.
Mourning the death of a celebrity you looked up to is just as important as grieving the loss of a beloved family member or friend. Grief is grief. There is no special definition or one-size-fits-all approach to it. If you think that ignoring your feelings of grief will help the process, it does not. In fact, it can prolong your grief journey. Just because you may not have ever actually met the celebrity who passed, it does not mean that your sense of loss is invalid or that they have not touched your heart in one way or another.
Although people may try to minimize your grief, please know that it is real and deserves the adequate amount of mental health support, whether this manifests as practicing a little more self-care or meeting with a grief therapist near you. It is important to acknowledge your loss and find ways to showcase and support your grief journey.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, couples, and families with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
Navigating the Void: Mourning the Loss of an Icon
Grieving the death of a celebrity you admired is a normal part of life although it may seem irrational to some people. Grief is a completely personal loss. Some people may grieve the loss of a celebrity by attending a memorial for the star or attending an online peer group.
If you are grieving the death of a celebrity, you may experience the following emotions:
Sadness or depression (Take our Depression Quiz to find out if you are struggling with depression)
Anger (If you struggle with anger, check out our blog “The Most Important Things You Need to Know About Anger Management”)
Shock
Anxiety symptoms (Read “3 Ways to Manage Your Physical Anxiety Symptoms”)
Loneliness
Feelings of helplessness
Finding yourself ruminating about the star’s passing
If you decide to share your grief openly, you may find that others do not validate your feelings surrounding this loss. You may feel the grief immediately and decide to seek the help of a professional grief counselor. On the other hand, you may feel paralyzed by grief which can turn into complicated grief. For more information on this topic, check out our blog “Am I Experiencing Complicated & Traumatic Grief?”.
Why am I grieving the loss of someone I never met?
There are many reasons to grieve the death of a celebrity. You may have had a personal connection to them, their work, their childhood, the manner in which they died, and much more. This person’s death may trigger some of your own fears surrounding death and the afterlife. Or, perhaps you might mourn not being able to experience any new work that this celebrity could have created.
The truth is that you build deep emotional bonds with celebrities that are highly impactful, from Elvis Presley to John F. Kennedy. The connection that you experience with a celebrity is different from the everyday relationships you form with family members, friends, peers, and colleagues.
The emotional bond that you build with a star is based on your projection of that person so that they can be a part of our lives’ most influential times. Therefore, you are bonded to the idea of a person rather than the person itself since you do not know them in real life.
Because we bond with celebrities from a distance, society has a tendency to immortalize these stars although they are human beings like me and you at the end of the day. It can be difficult to see these larger-than-life characters as normal people, because their music or acting has been with us throughout various stages of our lives and through many life transitions. After some time, you may feel like a celebrity and their talent will never leave you.
In some instances, you may resonate with a celebrity because you have similar traits or a shared upbringing. For example, you may be inspired by the story of Eminem, an American rapper and songwriter, who grew up in poverty and rose to be highly successful and influential. You may be in a similar situation where you are struggling financially, but are determined to succeed. Simply put, it is relatable to your own experience.
Connections to Celebrities: A One-Sided Relationship that Works
The relationship that you build with a celebrity is a parasocial connection. This means that it is a one-sided relationship where one person invests emotional energy and time while the other party, the celebrity, is unaware of the other’s presence. That is to say, the relationship is one-sided and non-reciprocal.
Normally, when we think of one-sided connections, it can trigger thoughts of toxic relationships or unhealthy partnerships but, in this case, it is a generally okay one-sided relationship that you benefit from by gaining entertainment and inspiration.
Your emotional involvement with a celebrity can be further fueled by entertainment sources, like television, publications, podcasts, and social media. The more information you receive about a celebrity, the more access you feel like you have to them.
This parasocial relationship can be formed for some of the following reasons to name a few:
To experience joy and/or entertainment
To cope with your anxiety and/or depression
To mentally escape from the stress of day-to-day life (Check out our blog “Everything You Need to Know About Stress Management Therapy” for some support)
You may feel like a celebrity’s work has been there for you when no one else or nothing else has been. For instance, when you learn of the passing of a famous singer, you may be brought back to that song that got you through a really difficult breakup. Or, you remember the album that brings you right back to being a little kid, dancing in your childhood home.
Celebrities can be embedded into your life, from your favorite comfort television show to the song you listen to when you need to lift your spirits. Consequently, when a celebrity dies, their death is connected to special moments in your life that have a profound emotional impact. In addition to a celebrity being a part of developmental milestones, they can often fill a void in your life, like the void of a mentor. We turn to them in times of need and they become a part of our story in a way.
Honoring Their Legacy, Embracing Your Healing: Reasons Why We Mourn the Death of Celebrities
Celebrity grief is a normal part of life that we all may experience. It may come in passing when you hear or see their work, or it may be something you seriously struggle with. Whenever you admire a celebrity, you form a personal attachment to them. A celebrity may be a part of the saddest or happiest moments in your life.
If the loss of a celebrity was a sudden one, like with Matthew Perry or Robin Williams for example, you may be filled with shock. If it was a progressive illness that the person was fighting, you may be better equipped to deal with your grief feelings.
Some reasons you may grieve the loss of a celebrity include:
Your identity is associated with the celebrity
When you admire a celebrity, it can:
Allow you to meet others who appreciate the famous person or their work
Give you pleasure by engaging with the celebrity (e.g., following them on social media, listening to their music, etc.)
Offer you a certain identity to display to the world
Your identity may be closely linked to your favorite celebrity so, when they die, you are not only left to mourn them, but you also have to reassess who you are without their work. You may feel like a part of you died when your favorite star did which can lead to an identity crisis.
2. You can feel connected to the way a celebrity passed
Your favorite celebrity may have struggled with a terminal illness or perhaps they struggled with alcohol and drug addiction which led to their death. When you learn how they died, it may make you think of your own life and how these health issues have impacted you, your family, or your friends at one point in time or another.
When a celebrity dies, it can help bring awareness to such pressing issues. People often try to create meaning from the passing of a star, such as sharing public health information online.
With Matthew Perry’s unexpected death, many of his fans have been left conflicted on how to celebrate his life and accomplishments. While many people know Perry from the hit television show, Friends, Perry has been very public about his lifelong addiction struggles. While fans can connect to Perry’s character in Friends and appreciate his acting career, they can also come to appreciate his lasting legacy of helping other people who are struggling with substance abuse issues.
According to an article by The Conversation, the actor opened up the Perry House which was his previous mansion in Malibu, California that he transformed into a sober-living house for men in recovery. It has also been rumored that Perry was in the midst of initiating a new foundation for people struggling with substance abuse problems before his death.
If you know someone who is struggling with addiction, read our blog “5 Ways to Help Someone Battling Addiction & Substance Abuse Issues.”
3. It reminds you of your own mortality
Hearing or speaking about death can make you think about your own mortality. It is very common for people to equate fame to a sort of symbolic immortality but, at the end of the day, celebrities are just people too. While their work may live on, they are human beings.
Many people may view celebrities lives’ as perfect. From the perspective of an outsider, it seems as if your favorite celebrity is living in a bubble where nothing can go wrong in their life. But, when you learn of their passing, it reminds you that the truth of the matter is that no one can escape death.
Finding Strength in Loss: Coping With A Celebrity Death
We do not know celebrities personally, but we do know their work and their ability to touch the hearts of and inspire millions of people around the globe. A celebrity can become a regular part of your life, reading their works and watching reruns of them. We witness celebrities grow and change and we grow and change along with them. So, when a celebrity passes, it hits close to home.
There are many ways to cope with the grief that comes from losing a celebrity. Here are some tips for grieving a celebrity’s death:
Attend a public memorial - Whenever you get the chance to say goodbye to a celebrity in person, it can be helpful in the healing process. Showing your respects in person can solidify how much this person meant to you while you can also connect with others who are going through the same grief journey.
Offer your condolences online - Whether you are talking to an online community of fans or your own social network, expressing your condolences online can be a good way to showcase your grief in a safe place.
Watch or listen to their work - As a way to continue to connect to the celebrity, you can watch or listen to their work. When a star dies, there is typically a peak in interest in their memorabilia, like autographed items.
Engage in meaningful projects - Many people find healing in the ability to make meaning out of a celebrity’s death. If a star died of a specific cause, you may find it softening to spread health information about that particular illness to continue to raise awareness.
Grieving Together, Healing Together: Therapy for Celebrity Loss
Grief counseling can be a valuable part of your grief journey if you notice that you are feeling overwhelmed by your grief and you cannot function normally in your day-to-day life. It is essential to reach out if you think you are experiencing prolonged grief disorder.
Grieving the death of someone you did not know personally is complex and others may minimize your feelings because of this. At Anchor Therapy, we have grief counselors who offer a safe space for healing with zero judgment attached. You will not feel alone or judged for your emotions.
We offer in-person sessions at our downtown Hoboken, New Jersey location. We also offer virtual grief therapy to residents of New Jersey, including Bergen County, Jersey City, and Montclair. Online grief counseling is also offered to residents of New York (including NYC) and Florida.
You can transform your loss into strength, but it takes time. When you have created a parasocial relationship with a celebrity, it is normal to grieve their loss. We can grieve for celebrities for a multitude of reasons whether their art helped us build self-confidence or they offered us a source of inspiration during a trying time. A grief therapist is a great resource in your healing journey, teaching you how to validate your emotions and learn coping skills for your grief.
Victoria Scala
is the Social Media Manager and Intake Coordinator at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark. In her roles, Victoria is committed to managing the office’s social media presence and prioritizing clients' needs.
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